Mobile devices have, relatively speaking, limited resources and performance. For example, battery life and the power of the central processing unit (CPU) or of the graphics processing unit (GPU) are among the reasons for this. Mobile device applications, e.g., for business intelligence and monitoring, may consume real-time data that needs to be rendered continuously on the device. The required data-transfer and visualization rendering can consume device resources at a very high rate when displaying data, particularly if the visualization is to be performed at a rate of 10-60 frames per second. To an extent, this is true also for some or all other data visualization devices, such as personal computers (PCs). Real-time visualization, on any device, induces a continuous consumption of energy caused by the CPU/GPU processing for each frame.
Furthermore, resource limitations in hardware (e.g., on current mobile devices) or in software (e.g., browser-based applications), can restrict the types of (real-time) applications that can be provided for a certain platform (e.g., for mobile web applications).